Maybe
by EHWIES
Summary: What if it were all just a cosmic joke, a game between two pawns? Who was he without a bane of his existence? xx Sirius versus Gideon, and maybe nothing more. Various ships.


**Maybe**

It started when he was young (because honestly, whose seeds for demons _aren't_ sown in childhood? after all, he knew even then that he'd be a Gryffindor). Every three months, the Blacks would put on a pureblood gala, all black tie and cocktails where the children weren't looking. As it was hard to hide anything from Sirius, he spent a lot of time in the basement with fellow troublemakers, unsupervised on the condition that he didn't disrupt the adults upstairs.

Naturally, he wasn't one to follow instructions, particularly those of his rubbish parents and their rubbish rules, but there wasn't much for a tyke without a wand to do. So Sirius bided his patient time, whiling away the hours with Regulus in his lap and half-brained plans swirling in his mind with that trademarked Gryffindor courage, wondering how soon they'd realize he wasn't like the rest of them.

He met the Prewetts that way—downstairs at a gala, counting the years until he could get the hell out of this lifestyle he didn't fit into. In retrospect, it would have been more appropriate if it had been James down there with Sirius instead, but the Potters didn't bother with such affairs, of course; at least this way James was detached from his demons.

The seeds are sown early, he knows.

He met the Prewetts that way—just the boys, since Molly was always one to toe the line anyway. "How come you're not up there with the grown-ups?" Sirius asked them the first time it happened, squeezing Regulus a little more tightly (whether for reflex or protection, he couldn't have known).

"It's all Fabian's fault," said the shorter, squatter boy, quick to point an accusatory finger. "I _told_ him Mummy would get mad if he ripped Molly's robes, but he didn't listen!"

Whimpering a little, Fabian protested, "I was just _bored_, Gideon. I didn't know they would rip."

"And now we're stuck here with _S-Serious Black_," said Gideon with a glare, clumsily enunciating Sirius's name and stuttering with the effort. "We're never going to get to go upstairs now!"

But Sirius knew better—that maybe they were lucky to be down here with him. He tried to tell them so, but Gideon wouldn't listen, and Regulus started squalling before he had a chance to convince him otherwise.

They spent a lot of time locked downstairs together, the Prewett and Black brothers. Fabian was all right, but Gideon was a brick wall, all caught up in his ideas of propriety and purity, and Sirius didn't think he'd ever met anyone so _rigid_ (barring himself, not that it occurred to him). He thought he'd be a Slytherin for sure, until Gideon announced proudly that Sirius couldn't be half the Gyffindor he would be someday. That was when Sirius remembered: some people were given a choice. Sirius just wasn't (isn't) one of them.

Before there was Voldemort or Wormtail or even Snivellus, there was Gideon Prewett. Maybe he's wrong—maybe he went a little mad in Azkaban after all—but he reckons that Gideon's the one who stings the worst.

--

He hates to admit it, but at first, James Potter looked like just another Prewett.

They met on the platform of the Hogwarts Express in the presence of a towheaded girl that Sirius recognized from the galas. "You're Dorcas Meadowes, right?" he asked, trying to maintain a careless edge to his voice.

"That's Dora, and I'm James Potter," James introduced eagerly, "and Mum says that someday, we're going to get married."

"So you're just going to go along with it?" prompted Sirius with a frown.

"Yeah, but only because Dora's cool," said James defensively. Beside him, Dora turned pink and shifted from foot to foot. "Anyway, it doesn't count until we're older. I don't care what Mum says. What's your name?"

He probably shouldn't have, but he liked James a lot better after hearing that. Maybe that was why he neglected to mention his surname when he said, "I'm Sirius—just Sirius. Let's find a compartment, yeah?"

James was pampered and prim and didn't give a damn about meeting expectations, and if that made him a bad influence, Sirius didn't care. All that mattered was that James promised he wouldn't let the Blacks make Sirius do anything he didn't want to do. So he went along with teasing the hell out of Evans and Snivellus and playing pranks on Lupin and Pettigrew from the dorm—he needed a little disregard for the rules back then, anyway.

And then one day James was in detention and Sirius caught their roommates talking about them in the corridors. He ducked behind a tapestry just in time to hear Lupin say, "Don't let them get to you, Peter. They're just a couple of bullies who think they're better than everyone."

"I know, but… it was just so _neat_ to find out about magic last summer, and I thought Hogwarts was going to be so great," said Pettigrew, sounding dejected. "I don't have any mates here. I'm no good at magic, and everyone knows it. I… I don't think I'm cut out for Gryffindor, Remus."

"Sure you are," said Remus soothingly. "And I'm your mate, remember? You've got me. Don't worry about Potter and Black—they're no better than the Slytherins, okay?"

He stayed behind the tapestry long after they'd gone, waiting for the shame to go away.

Later that night, after James got back from detention but before Sirius could look him in the eye, he said, "James, I've been thinking… do you really want us to be the best pranksters in the school?"

"'Course I do," said James, uncomprehending. "But the Prewetts have two years' experience on us."

Sirius glanced up at James then—talking to James was nowhere near as bad as consorting with Gideon, he rationalized. "That's the thing," he said. "They know more magic, but we have better resources."

"What do you mean?" James asked curiously.

"Hasn't it ever occurred to you how _useful_ it is that Lupin's the brightest bloke in our year, or that even though Pettigrew can be thick sometimes, he gets E's on his essays because they're so creative?" James nodded, drawing his knees up to his chest. "We can get the numbers on our side. Four minds are better than two."

James eyes were slowly lighting up with recognition and realization. Sirius was impressed—it wasn't often that James took anyone's ideas into consideration, even Sirius's. "Think about it," he advised, chancing a grin. To his luck, James returned it.

--

Even on opposite sides of the underclassmen prank war, it was rare that Sirius ran into Gideon. Truth be told, he dreaded their encounters—they always left him with a funny feeling in his stomach, a bit like the one he got every time he made Lily Evans angry.

It happened once in the common room one night, when James and Peter were with Remus trying to find out where he _really_ went every month. He felt defenseless and small when he was alone—maybe they'd been right; maybe he really was just a big bully after all.

"So I hear you've pitted yourself against me," said Gideon, his lips curled in a sneer, towering over Sirius's perch in an armchair.

"So I have," Sirius repeated, taking a calming breath, focusing on his heartbeat and the crackling of the fire.

Gideon shook his head, as if with disappointment. "It's too bad," he said then, backing away but maintaining eye contact. "There's a lot I could have taught you."

With an ironic little upturn of his lips, Sirius agreed, "I'm sure there is."

But Sirius wouldn't have wanted his help anyway. They weren't cut from the same crop; at least James had Dorcas, at least he could relate. Gideon didn't know a thing about traps and defiance—he'd been raised to say one thing and do another, to hold everyone else to a blood traitor standard he didn't want to follow. Maybe it was stupid, but Sirius wasn't interested in playing politics. Black is black, and white is white, and that was that.

Wasn't it?

--

The lines blurred just a little when they started to notice girls.

It was the Wednesday before Valentine's Day in fourth year when Lily Evans unwittingly started up the gossip. She'd fallen into a tête-à-tête state of things with James, and double Ancient Runes with the Ravenclaws seemed to be following the usual pattern: shaky acquaintanceship with a side of ridicule. That is, until Lily half-teasingly chided James, "You'd better not be getting me anything on Friday, Potter; I don't think I have the emotional stamina to handle that."

"Who said anything about Valentine's Day?" said James, turning pale.

Sirius straightened up a little in his chair and shared a significant look with Peter. "I was just kidding. I thought… well, I know there's Dorcas, but you two aren't dating exactly, right?" blustered Lily. "I just thought… I mean, isn't that just the sort of thing you'd use as a prank? And I didn't want…"

"Huh," said James, quieting for the time being. But from what Sirius could see, Lily's shoulders stayed tense until he finally added, "Well, now that you mention it…"

And sure enough, James presented her on Friday with a bouquet of thirty-six roses the likes of which Sirius had never before seen.

Then came the whispering around the castle about Lily and James and someone named Dora (the arranged marriage wasn't too well-known in other years). He didn't talk to James about it, but it inevitably got Sirius to doing a little thinking of his own about the opposite sex, to noticing the curves of their waists and the curls in their hair; and all he really realized was that maybe girls were pretty, but if he'd given anyone in the school a bouquet, he'd have given it to James.

It was weird, he knew that, and he'd never admit it in a million years—but girls made the lines blur between friendship and… _more_. And Sirius didn't want _more_, not with some busty girl he didn't even know. Snogging, maybe, but not—intimacy. He only trusted his mates with that. And it's only natural to snog the person you're intimate with, right?

But at fourteen years old, Sirius already knew a lot about lines—that blurred lines are a bad signs and what it's like to be trapped inside the lines—so he kept his mouth shut about his not-so-brotherly love when James brought up Lily to the three of them in the dorm one night. (Yes, to all three—they'd come a long way from two-against-two.)

"I don't think Lily liked the flowers," he said abruptly, idly flipping a page in his Divination textbook.

Sirius wasn't sure what to say to that, but luckily for him, Remus knew how to be articulate. "Well, does it bother you that she didn't like the flowers?" he said gently, carefully resting his quill on his sheets.

"I dunno," muttered James, rumpling up his hair like he always did when he was nervous. "I didn't think it would, but when she called me a toerag… what kind of an insult is that, anyway, _toerag_?" he added, trying and failing to sound derisive. "And then I caught her wearing a rose in her hair at lunch, and I… I dunno."

No one said anything for a moment; the only noise in the dormitory was the scratching of Sirius's and Peter's quills. Finally, James half-whispered, "I think I fancy Lily Evans."

"You fancy Lily Evans?" Peter echoed, putting his own essay aside.

He broke into a smile, realizing it, accepting it. "I fancy Lily Evans," James repeated, louder this time. He said it again, tossing his textbook to the floor: "I fancy Lily Evans! What do you think, Sirius?" he added breathlessly after a short pause.

All eyes flickered his way. Maybe he should have, but Sirius didn't think he'd be any help if he were to mention Dorcas Meadowes. "That's great," he said instead, hoarsely.

With Sirius's approval, James positively beamed, his chest puffed out and proud. "You don't fancy anyone, do you?"

"Er, Mary Macdonald is pretty hot," Sirius improvised, breathing a sigh of relief when Remus started to say something about Charlotte Fawcett from Ravenclaw. He didn't think any of them would take well to knowing what he really thought about them.

--

After Sirius ran away from home, it was seven months before he saw his brother again—it's funny how easy it is to avoid people you didn't want to see. They wouldn't have run into each other at all, but Peter had noticed on the Map that his Slytherin gang had been tormenting a few Hufflepuff first years, and Sirius hadn't been about to let that come to pass right under his nose.

He brought Remus with him to dock points, but it wasn't enough. "Regulus, wait."

His brother turned, his friends keeping close to his side, hard lines etched into his fifteen-year-old face. "What?"

"Tell your mates to scram, or else I'm not going to hold back for fear of detention." Sulkily rolling his eyes, Regulus muttered something to the boys with him, who begrudgingly began to disband. "Do you…?" Merlin, he had so many questions and not nearly enough _words_. "Do you remember how Mum would throw those galas when we were young, how much I hated having to hang out with Gideon Prewett, how you were always up for a game of Exploding Snap to cheer me up—?"

"You aren't my brother anymore," said Regulus, but his wide eyes belied him. "Get the hell away from me, Black."

Remus had to drag him away.

--

Gideon hadn't grown out of his sneer. "Yes, I thought you might have wanted to seek me out," he said casually as could be, leaning back against the corridor wall.

"Lily Evans," Sirius spluttered, searching for words. "You're… Quidditch captain… most popular bloke in the school, could have any woman you want, and you choose _Lily Evans_?"

"She is rather attractive, as I'm sure you noticed, and she _did_ say yes, remember that." Sirius just stood there shaking his head, until Gideon finally added, "Don't tell me you _fancy_ the girl…?"

He choked a little at the thought and said, "Fancy _Lily_? Don't be daft, of course I don't _fancy_ her, but—"

"Ah, yes, of course. There is the matter of James Potter," said Gideon, tilting his head a bit. "Doesn't he have a fiancé to worry about?"

And Sirius had to clench his fists and consciously _fight_ an urge to lunge at him, have it out Muggle-style. "His mum may say he has to marry Dora, but you know as well as I do that he won't be able to walk down that aisle. Lily and James…" he trailed off.

"I don't give a damn about _Lily and James_," cut in Gideon, his sneer twisting into a frown, and it was the truest thing Sirius had heard all day. "If I want to shag the girl—"

"You'd better not shag her; don't you at least give a damn about _her_?" said Sirius. Gideon said nothing, smirking again. "You don't, do you? You can't be—this isn't—why would you do that to James?"

Gideon chuckled low in his throat. "Not to Potter, Black," he said dryly.

With a flash of realization and a sinking in his stomach, he understood. "Don't hurt James to get to me. I'm not worth that," Sirius snarled, his fists clenching tighter.

"You underestimate yourself, Black," Gideon said, pushing himself off the wall and staring Sirius down. "It's always going to boil down to me against you," he added, as if none of it mattered, as if everything were just a cosmic joke between two rivals!

"Leave Lily alone," said Sirius, and he figured it wouldn't do any harm to walk away.

--

James got the girl, they all joined something called the Order of the Phoenix, and it took five Death Eaters to kill the Prewett brothers.

Maybe he's crazy, but Sirius hates that they died heroes.

* * *

A/N: I'm not sure how I feel about this one... bah. Hope you liked it! Review and let me know what you think. :)


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